Medicine Show

From the Hidden Shoal Recordings site:
Beginning with the dark groove of ‘Night of the Club Foot’, through the gaseous synths of ‘Pre-Dawn Visitation’, evoking a hallucinogen-fuelled walk among a misty moon-lit forest, to the visceral lurch of ‘Manatoc Enters The City / The Long Fall’, Medicine Show plays out like the soundtrack to a Terry Gilliam movie starring Tom Waits, each song a totally immersive scene, leading inexorably into the next.

From Todd Tobias:
Medicine Show is a graphic novel in music form. The story takes place on the border of history and pre-history, and involves a fellow named Manatoc who was raised among a hill tribe of hunting nomads. An invading army of "civilized" men appear and build a walled city, and then go about doing what civilized men do, which is to enslave the local primitive population or else hunt them down for sport. Manatoc serves as a scout for the invaders' army in order to get to know his enemy. In the meantime he has become something of a messiah among his people, including those living inside the fortress city serving as slaves. His adventure leads him to the city itself, where he is double-crossed by his hosts, and meets a sad and dramatic end. It's by no means a cheerful tale, but remember the words of Dr. Seuss: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

Additional Text from Todd's Bandcamp page: "Some humans were harmed in the production of this album, but no animals were injured."